Tides
by Ukaisha
Summary: Stan has been finding life harder and harder to deal with. It never seems to get better and he feels like his sadness is slowly drowning him. But on a day he seems certain to sink, a friend tells him him that for as many high tides and low tides you have, sometimes you've just gotta keep treading water. (Stan and Kenny friendship fic, slight Stendy)


A/N: This story is third in a line of introspective character oneshots.  
Its predecessors, "Weeds," involving Kyle and Kenny, and "Castles," involving Craig and Kenny, do not _have_ to be read in order to understand this story. Tides can be read as a standalone.  
But a good many things will make more sense if you read the other two first, particularly Weeds. A lot of things take on a more significant light if you've at least read Weeds.

Please be advised that this story contains in-depth discussions of **self-harm** and **suicide**.

I admit to being very glad that this is over. It's very draining to write things like this anymore.

After this, it's Cartman's turn for some introspection.

See you then.

And one last thing:  
_Happy Birthday Stan._

* * *

Tides

_Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?  
Can I handle the seasons of my life?  
_- Fleetwood Mac, Landslide

_I forget the last time I felt brave  
I just recall insecurity  
And it came down like a tidal wave  
and sorrow swept over me.  
- _Owl City, Tidal Wave

Stan suddenly jerked awake at a long, aching howl echoing down the hall, followed by an especially deep, bellowing moan from a saxophone. As his aching, heavy eyes tried to blink away the last few scraps of sleep before giving up and sealing themselves shut, the saxophone attempted to alternate to the other extreme, suddenly releasing a dreadfully off-key high note that persisted even while Sparky, Stan's aging mutt, barked furiously at it.

"RANDY!" His mother's voice was high in pitch, but guttural with rage, and somehow it carried upstairs and down the hall and throughout the rest of the house, but it was not enough to silence either the saxophone or its insistent criticizer. Sparky continued barking madly at the awful sounds honking from the brass instrument, and Randy continued to make the instrument bellow. "RANDY MARSH, STOP PLAYING THAT THING RIGHT _NOW_."  
Her last word was punctured with a sorrowful howl, but the saxophone suddenly went silent, and Stan heard a door swing open.  
"THIS IS MY PASSION, SHARON!" His father's unmistakably defensive voice yelled down the hall and down the stairs, where it inevitably carried to the kitchen, for only a second later, Sharon shouted up her reply.  
"I DON'T CARE IF IT'S YOUR PASSION!" Sharon Marsh shrieked; despite being a full flight of stairs and some rooms away, Stan could hear the sheer frustration and fury resonating in her voice. Sparky began barking again, incensed, but Sharon's voice continued to carry soundly throughout the house. "I'M SO TIRED OF LISTENING TO YOU PLAY THAT STUPID THING EVERY MORNING. I JUST WANT TO HAVE A NORMAL, QUIET MORNING WITHOUT GOING INTO WORK WITH A HEAD ACHE FOR ONCE!"

Even as his mother said it, Stan felt his temple throb against his pillow; he'd been waking up with a headache every morning since his father had discovered his newest hobby, and this one, this morning, was a doozy. The shouting match outside his bedroom was doing it no favors, either.  
"MAYBE IF YOU WOULD SUPPORT MY ENDEAVORS FOR ONCE, SHARON-"  
"THEN WHAT, RANDY?" His mother's voice had become marginally louder; she had apparently moved to the foot of the stairs. "WOULD ME SUPPORTING YOUR STUPID SAXOPHONE ENDEAVOR HELP THIS FAMILY GET SOME GODDAMN SLEEP?"  
"I NEED TO PRACTICE AND I CAN ONLY PRACTICE IN THE MORNING AND EVENING AFTER AND BEFORE WORK, SHARON! BECAUSE _SOMEBODY_ HAS TO EARN A LIVING FOR THIS FAMILY!"  
There was no shouted reply from the bottom of the stairs; just a guffaw of disgust and furious mumbling.  
Less than a minute later, the door had slammed close, hard enough to shake Stan's door frame, and not long after that, the screeching noises that were supposed to be music suddenly began seeping through the house again. Sparky diligently resumed howling and barking, a canine chorus, evidently fully supportive of Randy's saxophone endeavor. It was hard to choose which was worse; the howling or the instrument.

Stan finally opened his eyes and rolled over onto his back, staring blankly at his ceiling for a moment before taking a casual glance around his room, assessing whether there had been any damage from last night.

The soft light filtering through his curtains fell upon his bed, crossing over his feet, and highlighting the big bold Broncos logo of his comforter. From what he could see (and feel, after a cursory wiggle) he hadn't thrown up or spilled anything on his bed.  
Empty aluminum cans were carelessly scattered all over the floor, but they could be collected and disposed of easily enough.  
Nothing seemed to be broken, and he hadn't punched a hole in anything he could see.  
All in all, it was promising. There didn't seem to be a lot of repercussions from last night.

Stan's head throbbed; he could feel it pulsing behind his eyeballs even. It was like someone had taken a pair of nails and hammered them into his head; one for each eye.  
The only thing breaking the stillness of the morning was his father's abysmal saxophone playing, but the argument that had preceded it repeatedly resounded in his head; even now his mother's shrieking echoed, as though to this moment his parents were still screaming themselves hoarse.  
_'I just want a normal, quiet morning...'_

He somehow managed to gather enough strength to hoist himself out of bed, his head feeling full of rocks that shuffled and knocked around his skull as he did so.  
Gracelessly throwing his legs over the edge and seeking stability, he tried three times to stand before he caught his footing, and it was only with an unsteady grip on his nightstand that he even achieved this feat.

Stan held his head gingerly, massaging his temple even as he doubled over from the agony in his gut. It was like getting out of bed had inspired the rest of his body to revolt against him as well; his head and eyes were bad enough, but now his throat felt dry and burned as though he'd swallowed acid (depending on how many times he'd thrown up last night, that might not have been so far from the truth) and his stomach was gurgling and threatening to regurgitate whatever it might have scrounged up from his stomach over night.

It was, admittedly, the worst hangover he'd felt in a long time.

When he felt stable again, Stan took a deep breath and a dry swallow, and he shuffled to his dresser. He yanked out the top drawer so hard he nearly pulled it from the dresser, and the drawer hung on limply to its track by a thread.  
He dug around the drawer for a pair of briefs and a wife beater. He shed the clothes he'd been wearing since yesterday morning right there, leaving them in a ball in front of his dresser, and then he painstakingly pulled the new articles on. He found his jeans crumbled up in the corner, and underneath them a wrinkled gray t-shirt that still appeared serviceable. Last of all his jacket, worn and frayed, but familiar and comforting, was hiding under his bed.

The saxophone had suddenly cut out, as had Sparky's mournful howling, as Stan slipped each arm into his jacket and shrugged into it until it fit snugly. It was getting a bit small, that was true, but Stan would not have traded it for any other jacket, and neither would he trade his red and blue beanie, stretched and ate-up and poofball damn near falling off at the seams. These things were small comforts to him, and sometimes it was the smallest comforts that got you through the day.

After grabbing his sneakers and a pair of mismatched socks, Stan reached for his doorknob and then hesitated as another door in the hallway burst open. Frozen in place, fingertips just barely meeting the cool metal, he listened intently as his father emerged from his parents' bedroom. He heard him sigh and mumble something softly, without malice, and he heard his bare feet suddenly stop before his door.  
His father knocked, and he said quietly, "Stan?"

Stan did not reply at first. He trailed back to his unmade bed and slumped onto it, dropping his socks and shoes beside him. "Come in," he croaked, softly at first, and then he cleared his throat. "Come in."

Randy opened this door, but Stan didn't pay him any mind; he was looking down at his feet, utterly consumed with the task of getting his socks on.  
"Hey champ," Randy said, breaking an awkward silence. Stan nodded once, shortly, to acknowledge him.  
"Hey Dad."  
Stan had never been so involved with pulling on a sock; he made it seem like the most difficult task he had ever attempted in his life. Randy didn't seem to notice; he was having trouble looking at his son.  
"Well, Stan I...I just wanted to apologize for all that earlier. You know how your mom gets."  
Stan wanted to say, '_No, I know how you both get,' _and once upon a time, he might have said it. He had always been what his dad called a "straight shooter;" that is, Stan did not like bullshit. Today, though, he had no heart to stir things with his father. He just wordlessly nodded.  
Randy Marsh was also, unbelievably, wordless. He didn't often plan out the talks he meant to have with his son, but it wasn't often that he simply didn't know what to say.

Through the open door, they both could hear Shelly yell down to Sharon, "MOM! Have you seen my Chemistry book?"  
"It's on the kitchen counter, dear. You left it on the table last night." Though she still shouted to make herself heard, Sharon sounded completely different now; very patient, very motherly. It was only when faced with her husband's frivolous bullshit that her tone turned bitter and resentful.

Stan crammed his feet into his sneakers and pulled the laces taut. His head bent low, he slowly tied a double knot. He made no implication that he even remembered his father was still in his room.

"Anyway, I don't want to hold you up, so... I just wanted to let you know." Randy came closer to the bed and placed a hand on Stan's shoulder; he didn't outwardly acknowledge the touch at all. "I'm sorry your mom and I can be harsh with each other sometimes. I just want you to remember that we both love you."  
As though the sentiment had rolled right off his back, Stan scoffed, "I know, Dad. I'm not a little kid. I know that people argue."  
"Alright." Stan was still tying the laces with agonizing slowness. His father squeezed his shoulder gently, and then let go. At a loss for what to say next, Randy made it all the way to the threshold of his door before he found something else to say. "Hey, summer vacay's coming up soon. I'm thinking we could all go on a family vacation somewhere nice." He had suddenly become buoyant and excited, but the sudden happiness was not infectious to Stan.  
"Sure, Dad," he agreed, listlessly.  
"Well, cool." Randy sounded slightly deflated, but he continued in stride. "I'll see you downstairs for breakfast, alright?"  
Stan had finished tying his shoes, but he continued to remain hunched over. Again, he said, "Sure, Dad."  
"Love ya, pal."  
"You too."  
His father stepped out of his bedroom, closing the door behind him. He could hear his heavy bare feet stomping down the staircase.

Stan waited. He waited until long after he was sure his father had reached the bottom of the stairs, until he was sure his father must be in the kitchen by now, and he waited until he was sure he must have met his mother by now.  
He waited for yelling, and there was none. Outside, there only seemed to be silence, occasionally punctured by the twittering of summer birds somehow audible through his window.

Slowly, Stan managed to steady himself on his feet again; his stomach was in agony at this point. His breathing shallow, trepidation slowing his movement to practically nothing, he somehow stumbled to his door. His fingers softly closed over the doorknob, and then he paused, waiting again for something, anything to discourage him from turning it.  
There was nothing.  
With a telltale squeak his door opened, but the hallway was empty, and there were no discernible voices from the kitchen.

Stan made it to the bathroom before he began to hear the voices, soft at first, and he was brushing his teeth when the voices began to carry up the stairwell again. He pretended not to hear it as he stared back at his reflection, his sallow face and bag-plagued eyes suggestive of his fitful night.  
He wished he'd realized how shitty he looked earlier; he might have goaded his father into letting him stay home under the pretense of being sick.  
Then again, that would involve him remaining home, and home was the last place he wanted to be right then.

Stan repeatedly splashed his face with cold water, soaking the front of his shirt as he did so, but still the face that met him in the mirror was gaunt and serious, with a frown cut into his face like a scar.  
From down below, the voices were growing steadily louder and angrier. Sparky was barking again.

Abruptly, Stan seized the counter with both hands and steadied himself, at first gazing even further into the agonized stare that met him in the mirror, until he finally hung his head.  
The pounding in his head intensified as the shouting wafted through the house like a foul stench, permeating every room.

Without warning, Stan was suddenly sick into the sink, and as he coughed and sputtered and turned the tap to wash away the vomit congealing inches away from his face, with the other hand he reached to the medicine cabinet.

From the cabinet, he pulled out a small leather case.

Still clearing his throat and spitting out the last of the sour bile coating his dry mouth, he unzipped the case and allowed an old fashioned, high quality straight razor to fall into his palm.  
His mother shrieked particularly loudly, and he grimaced at the pounding in his head. For a moment he just remained hunched over the sink, the water loudly rushing into the basin and trailing away the remnants of his regurgitated stomach, the folded straight razor gripped tightly in his palm.  
When he stabilized again, he splashed his face with cool water and took deep, steady breaths.  
He still had to shave.

* * *

Stan had swooped into the kitchen and produced some toast smothered with butter and wrapped in cheap napkins before his parents even realized he was there. He left early to the bus stop, hitting his stride half way into the first block and making good time. As usual, he was the first one there.  
But then, he was probably the only one who so desperately wanted to leave his house in the morning.

He mechanically chewed his rubbery toast, realizing belatedly that the butter was not a good idea as the fat trailed into his stomach and almost instantly made him queasy.  
When Kenny arrived, second, as usual, (probably the only other person who was as anxious to leave home in the morning as Stan was) he offered Kenny the rest of his toast, and he accepted graciously. Kenny gulped down the remainder of the soggy bread almost instantly, and Stan spent the rest of the morning trying not to puke up the bread he'd managed to get down.

For the remainder of the morning, Stan kept to himself, and hardly bothered to interact with his surroundings. There weren't many people he still talked to at this point; he and Kyle were not currently on speaking terms, and there was no more to be said about that. The others had drifted recently, as friends sometimes did, but unlike his embittered friendship with Kyle, there was no bad blood between them, and sometimes, they even acted like they were still friends.

But there were some days, like today, when Stan just didn't want to talk to anyone. He just wanted to be left alone. He excused himself by saying he felt ill, and he looked so godawful that no one bothered second-guessing this.

Stan was not sorry to find himself alone at his lunch table, where he usually spent his time reading and picking at his food. Today, he opted to sleep, at least until someone intruded upon his solitude, noisily dropping a tray in front of him and occupying the bench at the table as well.

Stan lifted his head enough to acknowledge who it was, and then his head plopped into his arms again. He muttered, "Hey babe," so quietly that it would have been perfectly understandable if the intruder had not heard him, but as it was, she did.  
"Don't you 'hey babe' me," retorted Wendy. "I've been worrying sick about you. I couldn't get hold of you last night."  
"I had my phone off." Stan's face was still buried in his arms, and he seemed to have no intention of coming out, even to talk. His words were clipped and muffled.  
"Why would you have your phone off?"  
"So you couldn't call me."  
Any other girlfriend might have taken this statement as a declaration of war and reacted appropriately, but Wendy just shook her head and sighed. She tried to put a hand on Stan's arm, but he wriggled out of her touch.

"You were drinking again last night, weren't you?"  
"Gee, Wendy; do you want a medal or something?" As muffled as his voice was, the sarcasm was so thick on his tongue that he nearly choked on it.  
"You promised me you'd lay off." This accusation was met with stony silence. "Stan, please, just talk to me," Wendy pleaded with him. "You know I want to help you; you know I'd do anything-"  
"I don't need you lecturing me, okay?"  
"Then I won't lecture you if you talk to me," she snapped at him. He deeply sighed in response, but he at least raised his head out of his arms, and he finally sat face to face with his girlfriend.

Stan was sure he still looked like a wreck, but Wendy was effortlessly pretty, as she usually was; not that she ever tried. She always said she had more important things to focus on in her life than aesthetics, but she always came off as so neatly arranged and so put-together; even the casual way her hair was tucked behind her ears and then fell over her shoulders was just right.  
He often wished he had the gall to say things like this to her, but he rarely did. An awkwardly stammered "You're pretty" was usually the most he could muster, but today even that was a lost cause.

Stan saw she had already finished most of her meal; there was an apple lying on its side in one corner of the tray, and a plastic wrapped pair of snack cakes in another corner. He had no sooner noticed these things when Wendy asked, pointedly, "Did you get lunch today?" When he shook his head, she pushed the tray towards him. "Eat," she said crisply, obviously in no mood to take no for an answer.  
Too exhausted to take a browbeating over an apple and some cupcakes, Stan did as he was told, and he swiped the apple from the tray.

"I want you to do me a favor today," she said slowly. Stan was making a show of loudly munching a mouthful of apple, and he shrugged. "There's this meeting at the community center tonight at six."  
"Libertarian shit again?" he asked. Wendy was active in a lot of small groups and causes around South Park, some personal and some political. It was hard to keep up with them all, let alone care about any of them, but it was important to Wendy, so Stan at least tried to pretend it was important to him too.

"Not quite." She was biting her lip and rapping her nails on the table. Stan's headache had not quite gone yet, and the tapping combined with the raucous yelling in the cafeteria was doing a nice job of revitalizing it. "It's a meeting for people who have...problems."  
"Problems with...?" he prompted when she did not clarify.  
"Problems, you know." She was still speaking slowly, not as if Stan were stupid but as if she were testing the weight of every word before it left her tongue. "Problems like...with...alcohol."  
Any other boyfriend might have taken this statement as a threat to his manhood and acted appropriately, but Stan just patiently sighed and set down the apple, only half-eaten. "You know how I feel about AA, Wendy."  
"This isn't AA, it's different," she said in a rush. Now that the ice had been broken, it was obvious she'd practiced this. "This group believes in-"  
"I don't care," Stan interrupted, before she could gain momentum. "Like, come on...do you really think they'd let a kid go to those meetings anyway? They'd say I'm not even allowed to drink so I shouldn't even be there and they'd send me off."  
"But can't you at least try...?"  
"No." Stan toyed with the remainder of the apple, spinning it around by its stem and watching it topple back onto the tray. "If people find out I've been drinking, I'm in a lot of trouble, and a lot of other people will be in trouble too. They'll want to know who's supplying me, and if I break down and give 'em a name, _then_ I'll have a real problem, Wendy."  
"Stan, I just want you to stop hurting yourself." Stan winced as though the words themselves had hurt him, but Wendy was staring intently at the table, and she did not notice. "Can't you at least talk to me? Won't you at least tell me-"  
The shrill school bell interrupted her. All at once the students began clambering out of their seats with the lunch trays, some empty and some not, and the talking increased from a constant chatter to a dull roar. There was no hope of salvaging the conversation now.

The two were looking at each other warily, both afraid of pushing each other just slightly too far. Their last break up had been near the beginning of this school year, forever ago it seemed, and both felt like the relationship was starting to slip through their fingers again.  
Stan could see it in the exasperated way she looked at him.  
Wendy could see it in the hopeless way he looked at her.

Nonetheless, she put a hand over his, and this time he allowed it. He even shifted to lace his fingers with hers, and with his thumb he stroked her fingers softly. He liked her hands; they were petite and prim like the rest of her, but slightly rough too, like she was used to getting work done when she needed to.  
He wished he could say things like that to her; he really did.  
"Save that for later, okay?" Wendy said with a nod at the plastic-wrapped pair of cupcakes. Stan nodded and compliantly reached out to grab the snack cakes with his free hand and then stuff them in his jacket. She continued, softly, "And please take care of yourself. Call me or text me if you need me."  
"I will," he promised.  
He wouldn't.

* * *

Stan's headache was getting worse. The pounding was absolutely excruciating by this point, he could hardly think; his head was cracking open and swallowing his thoughts into some great divide forming in his mind. There was more than a hangover at work here.

The class was noisy and unruly. Everyone seemed to be talking at once, and the noise seemed to grow progressively louder the more Stan tried to ignore it.

There was no authority to take control of anything. The teacher was an older, middle-aged man with thin hair cut very close to his scalp, and he had given up trying to reign in a class that was determined to have the run of the place when so close to summer vacation. Final exams were over, there wasn't much work to be done, and teachers had become glorified babysitters for all the good they were doing in these last few weeks.  
The students chattered nonstop; the teacher sunk himself into a novel. Stan steadily sank into the ravine into which his thoughts drifted.

School was a trying enough time for Stan without all the excess chaos, and today was worse than normal.  
There was no reasoning as to _why_ today, this particular day, should be more difficult than all the others. It wasn't as though he had decided to find today more intolerable than usual. Stan could often find school tolerable, even enjoyable.  
But not today.

He had a magazine lying on the desk beneath him, open to an article about Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning, but he didn't seem to be looking at the pages. His eyes were aimed at the magazine and they seemed to be following the words, but they were glazed and blank and clearly looking elsewhere; somewhere very far away from Peyton Manning.  
Every now and then he would grimace and gently rub his temple. He could nearly feel the pounding of his head from beneath his fingers, and when he closed his eyes to give them a merciful rest, he could almost see them beating from beneath his eyelids.

Screaming. That's what it sounded like. The talking couldn't have been very loud; not really. It was certainly quieter than the cafeteria at lunch, but that wasn't how it felt.  
It felt like every single voice was screaming, and every single scream reverberated in his ear; a haunting echo.  
He was sure there were actual conversations going on, conversations that might have even interested him, but all he knew was a cacophony of wordless sound ripping his head apart.

Giving up on the magazine, Stan pushed it aside and set his head on the desk. He covered his head with an arm, trying to block out the sound, and when that didn't work, he tried both arms, eventually settling on covering his ears with both hands. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to think calmly and serenely, trying to find some kind of inner peace if it wasn't to be found on the outside.  
His forehead was sticking to the desk with cold sweat, but he felt burning hot. The mist from his breath steamed the lacquered wooden desk, and little droplets ran down the sloped surface and onto his jeans. As hard as he tried to become oblivious, to make everything fade away, it just seemed to amplify.

The classroom was a dissonant echo of voices.  
Stan's head was a earthquake widening an already impossibly deep chasm.

Why the fuck couldn't they just shut up?  
_Why the fuck couldn't they just shut up?_

"Shut up,"he muttered, under his breath.  
As if taunting him, it seemed to grow louder.  
"Shut up," he said again, a little bit louder. His immediate neighbor glanced in his direction, but he hadn't heard the words.  
"What'd you say dude?" he asked. "You okay?"  
"_JUST FUCKING SHUT UP." _The words were grated through clenched teeth, sharp and cutting, and his neighbor was stunned for a moment. He seemed confused, unsure whether to be taken aback or offended, and he wasn't the only one.  
"What the fuck is your problem man?"

Stan couldn't even look at him to reply; it wasn't him, it wasn't personal. It was everyone. EVERYONE.  
He suddenly banged both fists on his desk, snarling, even louder this time: "SHUT UP!"  
Finally, he was starting to draw attention to himself. They were listening; they were shutting up. Now there were whispers silkily drifting through the room, and even this was not enough; in fact, it was worse. Three more times he banged his fists on his desk, as hard as he could, and losing all pretense, he screamed: "SHUT UP! JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP! FUCKING _SHUT UP!_"_  
_  
All at once, as though someone had sucked all of the air out of the room, the class was deathly silent after the last anguished scream was cut from Stan's throat. Even the teacher remained frozen in place, his mouth agape, his hand caught mid-way through turning a page in his novel.

Stan just allowed his head to fall to the desk, nestled by his arms, and he too remained silent.

"Stanley, would you like to go to the nurse's office?" the teacher finally asked. He had to do something; he looked over the classroom, searching for some kind of answer, but the bemused looks on his students' faces seemed to say that this had been just as surprising for them as it was for him.

Without lifting his head, Stan shifted it back and forth, indicating 'no.'

The teacher had by now slipped a bookmark in between the pages of the novel and then placed it on his desk. From his top drawer he pulled out a piece of paper, and then he clicked a pen and began making hasty scribbles on it. "Stan, I want you do go to the nurse. Or Mr. Mackey. Or somebody; whoever you feel comfortable with."  
Stan had still not moved. He didn't appear to have acknowledged him at all; after the outburst, it was almost like he had lost all will to continue moving, even if it meant he'd get away from here. It was hard to even tell if he was breathing, he laid so still and unresponsive.

After an outburst like that, (and it wasn't the first time, either) the teacher knew he couldn't just leave Stan there. Something had to be done. But if Stan wasn't willing to go on his own, that meant he would have to call someone to escort him out, and he really didn't want to do that; it gave the wrong impression. He wasn't trying to punish the kid.  
Someone in the class would have to take him.

The man knew that he could pick nearly any student in the class and Stan would probably feel familiar with them; almost all of the kids in the class had been together since second or third grade, with few exceptions, as South Park still wasn't a large enough town to have too many different classes.  
He scanned his watchful audience for a candidate; someone the kid would agree to go with but who wouldn't cause problems.

Ah, Kyle Broflovski; yes.  
"Kyle, would you-" he began.  
"No," Kyle interrupted shortly, and then added, "Sir. I'd rather not." Stan's head remained stuck to the desk. He made no indication that he had heard Kyle's hasty rejection.

The teacher was peeved for a moment and thought to order the boy to take him, but in the end, he thought better of it, and he let it go. It was beyond him when Stan and Kyle had stopped being best friends, but that appeared to be the case, and if Stanley was already on edge he didn't need to force him to go with someone who was probably going to make it worse.

Again he looked over his students and tried to remember which ones had been Stan's friends.  
Token?  
No, he'd always hung out with the Donovan boy and that one troublemaker he'd made sure had not ended up in his class.  
He thought about sending someone to fetch Miss Testaburger from another class, but he wasn't even totally sure they were still dating. It seemed like a lot of hassle for something that might wind up disastrous.  
Who was it besides Kyle who had been in that troublesome foursome?  
They'd been infamous since South Park K-8 had been an Elementary school, but...  
Oh, yes, Eric Cartman. That was the other one.

On second thought, he bit his tongue before he even spoke. No, that was a bad idea. The kid had about as much empathy as a rock; he didn't need Stanley showing up in even worse state to the counselor's than he was not.

But there was one more, wasn't there? A forth who'd always seemed to hang around those three?

Suddenly, his eye caught on the sight of a boy in a brash orange parka, closed up tight and hiding most of his face like a clam; and given how little he moved or spoke, it might as well have been a petrified clam. It was easy to forget the boy was even in his class sometimes.  
"Kenny McCormick?" he said in the direction of the statuesque student. From the peephole in his hood, he saw the boy blink. "Would you please escort Stanley to the counselor's office?"  
Kenny gave no indication that he had heard the request other than a noncommittal shrug, but it was better than a flat out refusal.  
"Stanley, will you let Kenny escort you?" The response was another listless shrug. As only teenagers could, with those shrugs, the matter was settled. "Well, get on with it then," he said shortly.

Stan lifted himself from the desk as though his head weighed several hundred pounds. His gaze continued to bore into the ground as he passed Kyle's desk to retrieve his pass, and Kyle likewise seemed utterly consumed with picking out a bit of dirt from underneath his fingernail, giving their eyes no chance of meeting.

Kenny had silently risen like the dead from a grave, and he stood expectantly by the door. Stan was trying so hard to keep his head down and his eyes safely out of contact that he bumped into the final desk on his way out, and its owned snarled, "Careful Marsh, don't want to start crying before you even get there."

Stan remained stoic and pushed Kenny aside to pull open the door. When it was clear that Stan would offer no retort to the dig, Kenny faced the oogling class fascinated with Stan's solemn exit, and he said, clear as day: "Stop yer gawkin' and mind yer own business, you bunch of ball-juggling thundercunts."  
Then, without waiting for a response from the stunned classroom, he left.  
Moments later, the goodbye had sunk in, and the class roared with laughter.

The teacher rubbed his temple, exasperated, and wondered if perhaps he hadn't sent the wrong kid after all.

Stan was already well on his way to Mr. Mackey's office. It was not the first time he had been sent to consult the counselor's aid for his behavioral problems, but his steps were short and heavy, and it was not long before the boisterous orange parka concealing the quiet blond boy had caught up with him and kept pace with him.  
"Let's hit the john first," he said. "You know, to clean you up."

Tears had been dangling at the edge of his eyes for some time, but it wasn't until Kenny spoke of them that they were suddenly too heavy to restrain. Clapping a hand over his mouth to stifle a sob, Stan just nodded as the first drop shined down his cheek.

Stan was completely furious with himself for letting the tear fall, and that mounting frustration plainly showed as he abruptly turned heel and detoured to the male latrine.  
Again he manhandled the door open and threw it out of his way, and he went straight to a stall. He hardly acknowledged Kenny trailing into the restroom after him, but he did not fail to hear the loud CLICK of a lock as he slid it into place afterward, even as Stan clicked his own stall door shut and finally had a welcome moment of solitude.

Stan was biting his hand to muffle the pitiful mewls his mouth was trying to make, but there wasn't much he could do to stopper the tears so embarrassingly leaking from his eyes. Perfect. So fucking perfect.

He collapsed on top of the toilet with abandon and hung his head. He vigorously tried to wipe away the tears on his sleeves as he clenched his teeth and tried to will himself to suck up the tears, but his eyes refused to cooperate with his attempts to keep them dry, and so the tears kept coming. Every time he pushed them away, they returned with a vengeance, like the tide swelling against gravity; insubordinate. And underneath the hot streams of tears, his face burned hotter, and he was constantly swallowing the urge to allow a choking whine to croon from his throat.

He hiccuped now and then, but otherwise, he managed to hold himself together enough to not actually _sound_ like he was crying. It was a given that Kenny, who was pacing around the bathroom, knew exactly what he was doing in the stall, but Stan wasn't about to make a show of it.

Stan hated crying. It was embarrassing. It was something you could get away with as a kid, but definitely not as a teenager; especially when there was nothing to fucking cry about in the first place.  
And he never, ever wanted people to watch him cry. He never had an answer when someone asked him, "What's wrong?" so he preferred that people simply didn't ask.  
Crying was so draining. He always felt so tired afterward.

Finally, after a good quarter of an hour of staring at his feet and gritting his teeth and self-consciously imagining how impatient Kenny probably was by this point, Stan felt in control again. He took shaking breaths, waiting until his breath stopped hitching, and he rubbed his eyes so dry they hurt. His face still felt hot and his nose was dripping profusely, but he didn't want to blow it; there was almost no greater giveaway that you've just finished crying than blowing your nose.  
Instead, he wiped his face off with toilet paper and flushed it, and then he pushed open the bathroom door.

At first he was confused; Kenny was nowhere to be found. But he glanced around the bathroom until he found one of the other stalls' doors closed, and a pair of ratty sneakers peeking underneath. He thought he heard squeaking, but he wasn't sure.

Since Kenny was occupied anyway, Stan trailed to the sink, splashing cold water all over his face and getting it all down his front again. With the running water providing a cover, Stan blew his nose into some paper towels, and then he toweled his face dry.  
His eyes were blood-shot and sunken beneath deep bags, and his cheeks were stained with splotches of red, but there wasn't much he could do about that. He'd looked like shit all day; what did it matter really if he looked slightly more like shit than before?

Stan heard a clunk and a scuffle from the stall, and this time he was certain he heard a distinct squeaking noise; it was quiet, but he was certain of it.  
"Kenny?" Stan called. His voice sounded like he had been swallowing glass, but weak as it was, Kenny evidently heard him. His reply, far from sounding agitated from waiting for so long, seemed almost positively chipper.  
"Hey dude! I'll be done in a minute."

"What are you doing in there?" Stan asked suspiciously.  
"Performing area beautification."

Eyes narrow, Stan made his way to the stall; he realized it wasn't latched shut. Even closer, the squeaking was even more distinct. Cautiously, he pushed the door out of his way.

Kenny was standing on top of the toilet with a thick tip Sharpie marker pinched in his fingers, and the tip was currently putting the finishing touches on the head of an unexpectedly detailed penis on the bathroom stall wall.  
Kenny didn't even look down at Stan, despite him gaping incredulously for a few seconds before saying, "Really?" in a suspiciously condescending voice.  
"It was too empty," Kenny explained.

Stan glanced up and down the wall; it was covered in male genitalia of all shapes and sizes, an the vast majority of them appeared to have been drawn with a blunt tip Sharpie.  
In the middle of it all, there was writing, just legible, obviously by two different hands. A thin, jagged, scribbling hand proclaimed "Craig Mother Tucker" and a bold, flowing hand beneath It proclaimed: "Kenny McCockDick"

Kenny looked down to meet Stan's exasperated look, and he met it full face with a grin.  
Again as if he had just witnessed something completely beyond his comprehension, Stan said, "Really?"  
"Dude, we get bored when we're in class. What else are we supposed to do?"  
"Oh, I don't know..." Stan trailed off, his eyes pinched shut as he hid his face in his open palm. "Maybe...GO TO CLASS?"  
Kenny snorted and replaced the cap on the marker. "You and Kyle, man, I swear," he snickered as he stepped down from the toilet. "Word for word. You two still freak me out sometimes."  
Not in an especially good mood to begin with, being reminded of Kyle's stupid face hit a sore spot. He retorted, sourly, "You realize that both of your names surrounded by dicks makes you look homo, right?"  
Kenny actually stopped grinning and looked thoughtfully at his canvas, mulling the issue over. Then, with a snap of his fingers, he popped off the marker cap, and busily went to work drawing an uncannily shapely pair of breasts, considering they were 2D.

He repeated this feat several more times before Stan spoke again. "So, what, are you and Craig on buddy-buddy terms now or something?" It was true that the infamous foursome was not as close as they had once been, but while Stan was slowly realizing his old friends were branching out and forming new friendships, he had remained rooted in place. Even Wendy spent more time with her girlfriends than him, which considering his poor company as of late, was perfectly understandable.  
But he had thought that the dislike of Craig Tucker was mutual from almost everyone in their circle; Kyle especially didn't...  
"Buddies' is a relative term," knowingly said Kenny. Again he replaced the cap on the marker, this time with as many tits defacing the wall as dicks. "You mean, gay lovers like you and Kyle? No. More like partners in crime."  
"Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum is what I was thinking. And don't say that shit; you know what's gone on between us."  
"Honestly Stan, I don't have a Goddamn clue. You weren't talking, then you make up, then you're friends again, then fuck if I know. Now you're back to hating each other. What gives?"  
"It's not important anyway, dude," Stan murmured quietly.

Kenny stepped down from the toilet, and Stan backed away to let him exit the stall. But he didn't head for the door; he took up a spot before the mirror, still dripping wet from Stan haphazardly cleaning his face, and he leaned in close. He was examining his eyes, using a finger to pull the skin taught.  
Both eyes seemed a little darker than normal and a little yellow around the edges, as though at one point he'd had a pretty solid pair of black eyes, but they seemed to be healing up nicely.  
Kenny seemed to be in no rush to go anywhere, and Stan certainly wasn't either. He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, watching Kenny peel and poke at the skin around his eyes experimentally.  
"You get in a fight or something?" Stan asked.  
"Something like that. No big though."

Eventually, Kenny progressed from examining his eyes to examining his teeth, and that finally degenerated into him making stupid faces at the mirror. Stan was amused by it for a few minutes, he even cracked a smile at a few of them, but he was starting to get tired of standing around in the bathroom. Crying had sapped all his energy; he just wanted to sit down somewhere and think.  
"Do you think we should head off?" he asked.  
"Do _you_?" Kenny asked in return.  
"What's that supposed to mean?"  
"Do you want to head off somewhere? I'm game."  
Stan was thinking sluggishly at the moment, and it took him a few seconds to understand what he meant. "No, not that; I just meant head to Mr. Mackey's office or something."  
"Yeah, and I meant, 'do you want to head off somewhere?'"  
"You don't mean ditch, do you?"  
"Of course I do; look at who you're talking to. Unless you WANT to go sit in Mr. Mackey's office and be lectured at in the state you're in."  
"I'm not in a 'state,'" Stan mumbled sorely.  
Kenny finally grew bored of making stupid faces at himself, and he turned to face Stan, hands shoved deep into his parka. "I mean, it's your call," Kenny said earnestly. "I just thought maybe you'd rather take your own therapy than subject yourself to Mr. Mackey's bullshit."

Stan mulled it over for a bit, avoiding Kenny's eyes until he made his decision. Kenny glanced around the bathroom in the meantime, utterly patient, not pressuring him at all. He seemed indifferent to whatever Stan chose.  
There were only about three hours of school remaining, and they weren't doing anything in class anyway. The imminent threat of summer vacation made teachers too lethargic to teach and students too hyper to be restrained, and most of them would be as rowdy and lawless as the class they had just left.  
As bad as school had sometimes been, Stan had never found it so unbearable that he'd felt the need to flat out abandon school entirely, but again, today was different.  
Defiance suddenly welled up in him, and he decided that, no, he didn't want to deal with Mr. Mackey's droning voice or the disorderly ruckus of a bunch of summer-sick teenagers.  
"Okay," he said.  
"Alright!" Kenny clapped his hands, rubbing them enthusiastically. "Let's blow this joint."

It was almost too easy. The halls were utterly abandoned; students were still stuck in their classrooms and any normal authoritative figure that might have been patrolling the halls was taking it easy in light of pending summer vacation.  
In minutes, they made a clean getaway from the school, adults and peers alike none the wiser as to their absence.  
Stan's teachers would be under the assumption that he was trapped in an infamous Mr. Mackey speech, and frankly, no one ever noticed whether Kenny was around or not. They were as free as two teenagers could be.

The two walked casually down the road that lead from the school, out in the wide open as if they had every right in the world to be walking around during school hours; there was neither a sense of urgency nor hesitancy from either of them. Even as they made it to the main street, they lazily strolled along the side walk, looking into shop windows and observing the occasional car that passed them by. They weren't exactly comfortable in each others company, but there was mutual companionship, and that was well enough.

"Where are we going?" Stan eventually asked. His new partner in crime shrugged.  
"Where do you want to go?" Kenny replied, using an arm to motion before them. "The world's our oyster."  
"Home," Stan said instantly. He wanted to lie down and nurse away his headache, but Kenny made a noise and shook his head.  
"That don't seem like the best idea dude. Better try more secluded, at least for a few hours."  
Stan considered for a moment, and then he suggested, "Stark's Pond?"  
"Sounds good."

Even by most rural mountain town standards, South Park was an extremely small town. A determined person could walk from any starting point in town and wind up wherever they wanted in no more than forty five minutes, and in Stan and Kenny's case, it was only twenty minutes at a moderate pace to Stark's Pond.  
The summer heat seemed especially poignant around the pond, which at this time of year had withered slightly to little more than a rather large mud puddle. Insects droned incessantly in the long grass and now and then a frog would croak from the muddy bank, but the area itself was completely deserted.

Their feet squished into the ground on the way to the pond, somehow becoming marsh-like even in the summer glare.  
Kenny made a beeline for the rickety wooden bench overlooking the pond, but Stan trailed behind, eventually stopped altogether.

"Hang on," he said. He glanced around, getting his bearings, and then he headed for a fallen log, moist with decay and dotted with little fungi. He began circling it thoughtfully, not noticing Kenny a ways away raising an eyebrow at him.

When he determined that he'd found the right spot, he dropped to his knees and reached into a hole, swatting hanging moss and flies out of his way.  
Not too far away, Kenny observed, quietly, bemused. "What are you doing?" he asked.  
"Finding something," Stan replied. He caught onto something and began pulling it out of the log. A six-pack of Coors suddenly materialized from the hole, and he plopped it on the ground in front of him, peeling moss and rotting wood chips off of the cans.  
Kenny did not comment. Stan glanced over his shoulder, waiting for the inevitable scolding, but it did not come. Kenny seemed to look beyond Stan, finding a ponderosa pine a few feet to his left exceptionally interesting.

Stan pushed himself to his feet and took the six pack with him. He walked past the boy patiently waiting for him, and headed straight for the wooden bench. He fell onto it with a tired sigh, and he yanked a can out of the plastic rings.  
Like a ghost, Kenny trailed up beside him, and soundlessly slid onto the bench beside him.  
"Here," Stan said. He peeled another can out of the plastic rings and he offered it to his friend.  
"Thanks, but I expect better of you." Stan tensed up, anticipating the preaching, but then Kenny continued, perfectly serious. "I get you out of school and you give me warm horse piss? The least you could do is pitch in for some DECENT beer."  
"Hey, you take what you can get around here. When you're 13 you can't pick and choose much."

They both popped the tops to their beers. Kenny's just sort of sat listlessly in his hand; Stan's was half gone by the time he thought of the next thing he wanted to say. "And I don't need to hear shit coming from someone whose entire family drinks Pabst Blue Ribbon, thank you very fucking much."  
"Hey, it's my family's God-given right as rednecks to drink Pabst. You're from a Goddamn middle-class white collar American household. You should be drinking fucking Guinness or something, at least; fuck."

They both chuckled; neither of them seemed to take the teasing to heart.

They eased into a shared, understanding silence as they sipped their beer, the dead summer air hanging hot and heavy over them.  
Stan finished way before Kenny, crushing his can with a swallowed belch, and he dropped the crumpled aluminum into the dirt.  
"You should save those," Kenny told him. "A nickle a can don't seem like much, but it adds up."  
"Nah, don't have the patience." Stan rubbed at his eyes again; he was still exhausted after his little meltdown in the bathroom, and walking across town to sit in the hazy sunshine had only made him more tired. He could hardly hold his eyes open, and the warm horse piss wasn't helping.  
Kenny, who was still very much awake, said sagely: "Time is money, my friend."  
"Fuck; if that were true I'd be loaded. Time is money, a penny for your thoughts; with all the time I spend thinking I ought to be in a mansion by now."  
Kenny released a dry little laugh, and he put his beer can to his lips. He hardly tilted it, barely let a few drops enter his mouth, and then he let the can drop to his side again. Stan didn't seem to notice; he was eying the remaining cans until he swallowed dryly and averted his gaze. He had to save the rest if they were going to be sitting out here for a while.

Kenny suddenly placed his beer on the ground beside his foot. He began wrestling out of his parka, managing to hike the tank-top underneath nearly up all the way onto his shoulders before he actually got it off. He sighed contentedly as his bare skin met the open air, and he balled up the parka in one hand while he pulled down his undershirt with the other. "Damn, that's better," he said, and he enthusiastically ran his fingers through his hair until it stuck up in every direction.  
Stan seemed disinterested in the whole show, and in fact didn't even respond until Kenny asked him pointedly, "Don't you want to take yours off too?"  
"Nah," Stan said dismissively. Sweat rolled down his back and soaked the front of his shirt collar, but he seemed oblivious to the heat.  
"Fuckin' weirdo," Kenny said, letting his parka drop beside him. "Even I won't sit and bake to death and I never take this fucker off." He gently kicked the orange ball a few inches away, and then he reached for his beer again. He still hadn't drunk more than a few drops from it.  
"I don't want to get sunburned," Stan reasoned, making no secret of looking pointedly at the back of Kenny's neck.  
"It comes with the territory," amiably said Kenny as he reached up and lightly rubbed his neck.  
The sun was impossibly bright and the air was chokingly viscous with heat. The dog days in the mountains were especially brutal because its occupants were so used to the chill and cold, but while Kenny took to fanning himself, Stan continued to bake in his jacket, so warm and hazy that he thought he really might fall asleep.  
Still unaffected by the suffocating heat, Kenny said, "Man, I'm starving."  
"Yeah." Suddenly, Stan had realized that a day's worth of hunger was creeping up on him. It had been a long time since the greasy toast and Wendy's half-eaten apple.  
He was contemplating how much longer they would have to sit here before heading home, and then he suddenly remembered.  
"I have snack cakes," Stan realized aloud, and he reached into his front pocket and pulled them out.  
Kenny was looking at him as though he had just done some kind of inexplicable magic. "Where the hell did you get snack cakes from?"  
"I got them at lunch. Wendy gave them to me after..." he trailed off and tore open the plastic wrap, handing one of the chocolate cupcakes to Kenny.  
Astute as always, Kenny didn't ask questions, and he just took the cupcake. Unlike the beer, which he was still nursing with agonizing slowness, he took an enormous bite out of the snack cake first thing, and finished it in two more giant bites before Stan had done any more than nibble the outside, not even reaching the cream filling yet.

"You'll get sick if you eat like that," Stan scolded. Kenny just shrugged and licked chocolate and cream off of his fingers.  
"We don't all have your weak ass stomach, Stan."  
"I don't have a weak ass stomach."  
"Uh huh. When's the last time you puked because your stomach was upset?"  
"...This morning," Stan grumbled, and Kenny waved his hand with a flourish, as if to say, "Well, there you are." But he did not, actually, say anything.

As if his stomach were determined to prove Kenny right, Stan began feeling nauseous a little less than halfway through his snack cake, even taking tiny, hesitant bites. Maybe it was because the cake was so warm or the sun was so strong or the beer settling in his empty stomach didn't mix well with it, but his stomach gurgled threateningly and made Stan hunch over suddenly with a groan.  
"You okay?" Kenny asked, concerned.  
Stan grunted in response.  
"What did I tell you?" Despite the smugness in his voice, Kenny was not above rubbing his back soothingly, but Stan's only response was to hold out the remainder of his snack cake.  
"Take it," he said weakly.  
Kenny didn't need to be told twice, but he also did not stop rubbing his back, and then he said, muffled, with his mouth already stuffed with spongy chocolate cake, "You're always giving me food."  
"Not always," Stan mumbled. He was still hunched over, holding his forehead in his hand. He could feel how warm and sweaty his face was beneath his palm;  
"Maybe you don't realize it, but yeah, you are. Like every morning you give me whatever's left over from your breakfast and you're always letting me finish your lunch at school."  
"Well, with my _weak ass stomach_, I find it hard to finish everything I try to eat."  
Kenny grinned good-naturedly as his words were thrust back at him. He pat him hard on the back, hard enough for Stan to lurch forward a bit, and then he withdrew his hand. "Yeah, you're fine. Or you're gonna be." Kenny bent over and pulled his parka closer to him, and he began digging around in the front pockets.  
"Thanks for your thorough assessment of my health," Stan said dryly. He reached down to pull off a second Coors from the plastic ring.  
"You'd probably feel a lot better if you took off your jacket," Kenny suggested.  
"No," Stan said flatly, and that was that.

Kenny had revealed a crushed pack of cigarettes from his front pocket, as well as a cheap plastic lighter. The pack contained three lone cigarettes, and Kenny carefully plucked up one and then set aside the little carton on the bench.  
While he flicked his lighter a few times to find a flame, Stan plucked the tab on the beer can and poured it down his throat.  
"You're just asking for trouble now," Kenny said, still holding onto the cigarette with his lips.  
"Bite me," Stan replied snidely.  
"Hey, I ain't the one who was about to upchuck from a cupcake a minute ago." Kenny finally found a flame and he puffed until the tip burned red and orange. Staring cross-eyed at his own cigarette, he didn't see Stan nearly polish off his second can in one more determined swig.  
Again he stifled a burp, and he felt beer and acid rise treacherously in his throat. He ignored it and instead, he said dryly, "If I wanted someone to lecture me, I would have talked to Wendy."  
Finally, Kenny took the cigarette from his lips in his thumb and forefinger, and he exhaled tiredly. "I'm sure she's just worried for you," he said.  
"Well, she doesn't need to be. That's Wendy's biggest fucking problem, you know. She can never keep her nose out of other people's goddamn business. She always has to get involved in this movement or this other thing and she's always on _someone's_ ass, and _always_ on mine."

"Then break up with her," Kenny replied simply to all of this.  
"It's not that easy." Stan drained the second can and it met the same fate as the first; crushed unceremoniously into the ground. Then he hunched over again, gently rubbing his eyes. "And I still love her," he confessed.  
"Then I don't know what to tell you, bro. I've never hated a girl and still wanted to be with her."  
"I don't HATE Wendy, I just...ugh, you know what, never mind."  
"Alright," Kenny conceded, way too easily.

Time passed slowly on Stark's Pond. Surrounded by mountains and coniferous foliage, the only intrusion upon the solitude of the wilderness was the lone dirt path, and at the end of it, the two boys slouching on top of an old wooden bench.  
In the still, dead heat, the smoke wisps from Kenny's cigarette lifted straight up into the sky. Waterlogged mosquitoes buzzed over the pond, and after a while, Kenny's time was primarily spent swatting them away from his bare arms and neck.  
Stan, who continued to suffocate in his jacket, at first smirked in bitter triumph, but then a wretched look came over his face again.  
"Fuck, my stomach hurts," he muttered to himself.  
"What did I fuckin' tell you?" Kenny said again, this time wearily. "Stop drinking that shit if you can't handle your alcohol."  
"I can handle my alcohol just fine, thanks," Stan retorted.

A few moments later, after Kenny flicked away his first cigarette and crushed it into the ground next to Stan's disposed beer cans, he was hunching over again, taking deep breaths and holding his head with a shaking hand.  
"Fuck man, I think I'm gonna hurl."  
"Easy, easy," Kenny said soothingly, and he rubbed his back again.  
It wasn't long before Stan's prediction came to fruition, and he spun around on the bench, straddling it with his back to Kenny and damn near falling off in the process. He lurched forward and held himself up with one arm on the ground, and, as he had thought he would, he hurled.  
Kenny just kept rubbing his back and murmuring to him, "Easy, take it easy, Stan," until he had burped up his last sour wave of vomit, and even when Stan just moaned and laid face-down on the wooden bench, Kenny continued his steady ministrations on his back.  
"I'm sorry dude," Stan sniveled pitifully. "I've been a fucking mess all day."  
"Understatement of the year, right there," Kenny quipped. "Did you want to talk about it?"  
"Not really."  
"Alright." Kenny's circling hand paused momentarily. "Dude, your back is soaked."  
"Yeah, it's fucking hot out," Stan mumbled. He hid his face from the light with his forearm, and then he sighed deeply into it.  
"Are you sure you don't want to take off your jacket?" Kenny asked shrewdly.  
Just as firmly as before, Stan said, "Yes."  
Kenny bit his tongue and resumed gently rubbing Stan's back.

It wasn't too long before Stan managed to pull himself up and slouch over the bench again. His face was still glowing red from a combination of laying face-flat on the bench, a little tipsiness, overheating, and possibly a little too much sun.  
"I want to go home," he muttered to himself.  
Kenny's hand dug into his parka's front pocket again, and when it emerged, it was clutching a small black cell phone. "It's too early," he announced, and then he placed the phone on the bench beside the pack of cigarettes, out of which he pulled the second to last cylinder.  
"God damn it," Stan swore. He buried his face in his hands, vigorously rubbing his eyes again. "I think I'd have rather stayed in school at this point," he said sourly.  
"I never forced you to come." Kenny flicked his lighter again, and this time the flame caught on the third or fourth flick.  
Stan sighed, "I know," and he reached down for the remainder of the six-pack, still holding three cans hostage in its plastic rings.

"Now you're just being stupid." Kenny was almost always soft-spoken; even when he was angry, his tone simply became cold and detached rather than loud and heated. But now, Kenny spoke sharply to Stan, and it startled him.  
"What was that about?" he asked. He truly seemed to not realize why Kenny suddenly had a bone to pick with him, and he straightened back up on the bench with his third Coors in hand, about to pop the top.  
"Don't play dumb with me, Stan. You know you're being a goddamn fucktard right now."  
"Why-" and then Stan caught on, and his ears turned red to match his face. "Fuck you," he said dismissively, and he peeled back the tab.  
"You can't even keep any food down and yet you sit there guzzling fucking beer on an empty stomach until you puke it up again," Kenny said. "You're not fucking stupid; you know better. Why are you doing this to yourself?"

Stan very purposely brought the can to his lips, and before he tipped it back, he said coldly, "Bite me," and then he drank.  
Kenny just scoffed and threw his hands up, incensed. "You're so right, Stan. I mean, it's not like I just sat here and comforted you less than fifteen minutes ago while you blew chunks and then couldn't even sit up for a few minutes."  
"I never asked you to help me, you know," Stan retorted bitterly. "If you're going to bitch about not getting any recognition for your good deeds, you can just walk your happy ass right back to town. I don't give a shit if you stay here or if you just leave me to get wasted by myself. I could care fucking less."  
"You're a mess right now, Stan," Kenny said bluntly. "And I wouldn't leave you here alone if you paid me."  
"Funny; I thought anyone could pay you to do anything."  
"Low blow, Stan. Super low."  
"Yeah, well, fuck you."

Kenny watched Stan suck down his third can with disappointment burning in his eyes and his lips pursed in a thin line across his face. He cupped his hands and draped his arms over his knees, letting his cigarette burn away in his fist.  
Stan's gaze was pointed directly at the lake, strictly avoiding Kenny.  
"I just want to help, you know," Kenny finally said evenly.  
Based on Stan's scowl, he heard him, but he didn't do anything in response.  
"It's not like I'm trying to attack you or anything, okay? My goal is not to hurt you."  
Stan threw back the can again without replying. It was as if Kenny had simply dropped off the face of the earth.

When he finished, he wiped his mouth off on his sleeve, and then his forehead as well; sweat was shining on his face in the summer heat.  
"Why don't you take off your jacket?" Kenny asked, abruptly, and it was this inquiry that finally broke Stan's silence.  
"Why do you keep asking me to take off my jacket?" he snapped. "That's four fucking times now. Take a hint."  
Kenny would not be deterred. "It's fucking hot out and you're wearing a goddamn winter jacket, that's why."  
"Says the guy who never goes out without a bright fucking orange parka. Christ," he chortled, swallowing the last of the warm beer and letting the can drop between his feet with the others, and without skipping a beat, he ripped off his fourth, leaving only one can inside the plastic rings.  
Amidst all this, Kenny's first and only beer can was still a little more than half full, and Kenny glared at it solemnly.

"Stan, can I ask you something?" Stan plucked uselessly at the can, unable to get a good enough grip to pop the top with nails chewed short. To acknowledge Kenny, he grunted, and then he brought the tab to his teeth. He managed to get a tooth beneath it it and he yanked the can, popping the top as warm frothy bubbles spilled down his chin, only narrow missing the collar of his shirt.  
Kenny waited patiently for a response, which Stan, intentionally, did not give. He wiped his chin off on the back of his hand and tilted the can into his lips, sipping noisily. "Stan, for real dude. Will you answer me or just sit there brooding and snarking at me?"  
Stan's throat constricted and the beer pooled in his mouth. Cheeks bulging, he lead the can away, taking small, calm swallows to get it down. Very suddenly, it tasted awful, and when he finished he spat and shook his head in disgust.  
Kenny remained waiting expectantly. Stan still did not give him the permission to speak.

"It's not about the beer, if that's what you're worried about," Kenny finally amended. "I know Wendy has already harped on you enough for it. And it's not about you being a sniveling pussy lately either; I'm sure Cartman has got that angle handled."  
Not looking at his friend, Stan finally answered. "Then what?"  
"What happened between you and Kyle?"  
Stan's whole body seemed to wilt. He hunched forward and closed his eyes, the beer can dangling between his knees by only the barest tips of his fingers. The one thing he didn't want to fucking talk about. Trust Kenny to nail it.  
"Ask me another question," Stan responded gruffly.  
"I don't want to ask another question; I want to ask this one."  
"Well, that's too goddamn bad then isn't it? Because I'm not answering."  
Kenny abandoned all pretense and patience. "What the hell, man? I thought you two had made up. I thought all of this bullshit was over with."  
"Ask fucking Kyle about it if you want to know," Stan snarled at the twigs half suffocated by his shoes; anything to avoid looking at Kenny.  
"Ya know, I had a nice long talk with Kyle a while ago. From his side of things, it's your fault you guys stopped being friends."  
"Of course he'd say that." Stan crushed one of his discarded cans beneath his shoe, digging it into the dirt as he flattened it. "Of _course_ it's my fault. It's always my fucking fault."  
"He didn't say THAT, he just said-"  
"You know dude, I don't really give a fuck what Kyle said," Stan interrupted sharply. "And for that matter, I don't really give a fuck what YOU have to say, either. So get off my fucking back or go the fuck away and leave me alone." Kenny did not take kindly to the contentious dismissal, and his tone reflected it. His patience was finally up. "Don't you be a little fucking douchebag to _me_, Stan. I ain't never done nothing to harm you none. I don't know what the fuck is wrong with you, but you need an attitude adjustment. Pronto."  
"I said I didn't fucking care what you thought, didn't I?"

For a moment, it seemed like Kenny had had enough and he really would stand up and take off. The sudden mistrust between them was like static; it had them both on edge and yet, still, neither of them would look at each other.

Stan was prepared to deal with damn near anything else Kenny had to throw his way, especially if he opted to focus on his drinking, but instead, piercing through defenses he hadn't even realized were there, Kenny struck. "Stan, take off your jacket." Stan was take aback, and more out of confusion than anything, he glanced at Kenny, disbelieving. "Seriously?" he said.  
"I'm dead serious." He was; Kenny had never sounded more serious about anything for as long as Stan had known him.  
"No. I said no already. I'm not taking it off."  
"I'm not leaving until you take it off," Kenny vowed.  
"Well, that's too fucking bad, isn't it? I guess you'll be out here all night."  
"You're only making it worse for yourself; if you would just talk to me-" Kenny had hardly begun to explain when Stan cut him off, again, loudly and angrily overriding his words.  
"Will you stop fucking bothering me about my jacket?! It's not a big fucking deal. Maybe I don't WANT to fucking talk to you, alright? Maybe I don't WANT your fucking help!" Kenny was unmoved. "Take it off." "No." _"Take it off."_ _"Fuck you."_

Stan attempted to stand and leave; Kenny reached out and pulled him back down, and he held him on the bench, nearly falling off as Stan pulled and shoved to get him away. Kenny grit his teeth, his face still emanating unwavering seriousness.  
"Let me go!" "Stan, I know that-"  
"YOU DON'T NEED TO KNOW!" he yelled, finally breaking free by throwing the rest of his beer can at Kenny's face. It made direct contact and as Kenny flinched, he backed off and let go of Stan. The rest of the Coors spilled down his front, but Kenny hardly wasted more than a glance on it. He maintained firm eye contact with Stan, who, now that he was free to up and leave if he wanted to, simply sat there, his tremulous hands gripping the sleeves of his jacket. "You don't need to know," he repeated, this time in a vanishing whisper.

For a moment, Kenny seemed to reconsider saying what he was going to say, but then he made up his mind. "I already know what's under there anyway."  
Stan's response was as dead as the summer air. "How?"  
Kenny replied, simply, "How do you think?"

Kenny stuck his stubble of a cigarette between his lips and then grabbed the arm nearest to him. At first Stan was startled by it, but then he just looked away. Kenny unbuttoned the cuff and began rolling up the sleeve, and Stan just sat there, letting it happen.  
As the coat was rolled up and inch after inch of arm was revealed, it became painfully obvious that his arms had not seen the sunlight for a very long time. The dark wispy hairs laid against a backdrop of pale white skin, pasty, almost sickly, even considering how little they got sun in their quiet little mountain town. That was the top of the arm.  
Kenny gently turned it over, revealing the underside, even paler than its counterpart. Intermittently, up and down the arm trailing from the elbow to the wrist, were long white lines, harshly contrasting even with the paleness of the rest of the flesh. One, an inch or two away from the wrist, was fresh. The square gauze bandage had come undone in the heat and the sweat and it clung to his arm by a thread, but did nothing to hide the red line marking his arm. It looked like it might resume bleeding again at the slightest provocation, it was so new.

As Kenny had implied, the reveal did not appear to surprise him. Stan at first made every attempt not to look at his face, but curiosity got the better of him, and he began to observe Kenny as closely as Kenny was observing his arm.  
Kenny eyed the arm from top to bottom, satisfied that his hunch had been correct after all, and then with his free hand he plucked the cigarette from between his lips, and softly exhaled the gray smoke. His face, when it met Stan's, was unreadable. "How long?" he asked. His tone was unnervingly nonchalant. "About a year," Stan replied, hesitantly. It had been about two years since the first time, but it had only become a habit recently.  
Even Wendy didn't know. Only one other person did.

Kenny let the arm drop. He picked up his beer can again, just to have something occupying his hand; he still did not drink from it.

"How did you know?" Stan asked again, intently. He was starting to pull his sleeve down again, hiding the scars from sight.  
"How do you think?" Kenny answered again, this time with a trace of impatience.  
"You don't..." "Not habitually, no." As if it were as simple a matter as showing off a tattoo or something, Kenny pulled up his sleeve, baring his wrist for Stan to see. Two tiny white scars hovered above his wrist.  
Stan seemed morbidly fascinated with them; he leaned in for a closer look, and he nearly raised his hand to touch them. Kenny didn't seem bothered by the attention.  
"They're old," he finally said when Stan didn't make any comment on them, and then he dropped the sleeve again. "I found better ways to cope with my shitty life."  
"That's what pisses me off sometimes, you know. My life isn't that bad. I mean, compared to..."  
The words hung precariously in the air like suffocating storm clouds thick with thunder. Kenny finished the sentence for him. "Compared to me?"  
"I wasn't going to say you," Stan amended quickly. "I mean, what everyone says about you and your folks-"  
"Is completely true," Kenny finished for him again. The cigarette burned bright as Kenny sucked on it, and then he pulled it from his lips again, exhaling. "You want me to be honest, Stan?"  
Stan hesitated. He had no idea where Kenny was going with this, but he nodded unsurely anyway.  
"My parents are _worse_ than what they say. My pa ain't had a proper job in years. He's a deadbeat alcoholic and my ma ain't far behind. He and ma still deal drugs to get by and I mean hard shit, meth and coke, not like weed or something. We hardly ever get proper meals and when we get on the old man's bad side..."  
To make his point, Kenny began to pull up his tank top, revealing his bare back. He hunched over and turned his back to Stan to give him a good look. Some of it was obvious right away; bruises, welts, cigarette burns. From his shoulder, dripping down, there was a large, shiny pink scar.  
One again, Stan seemed morbidly fascinated by it; he ran a finger down the raised flesh, wondering what could have caused it. "What's..." He hesitated to ask, but Kenny didn't need him to.  
"Drano," he said. "And probably brake fluid and other shit. That's what happens when you piss off your folks while they're cooking meth."  
Stan winced and drew his hand back. "Oh."  
Kenny pulled his shirt back down over the scar. Stan was, conspicuously, not looking at him again.

"But, you know, I'm not gonna harp on about it," Kenny said. "My home life ain't pretty; we've established this. I don't see no sense in going on about it."  
Stan said quietly, "So there's no sense in fussing about my life, either."  
"Now that's not what I said. I said I didn't want to fuss over MY life. You have every right to fuss over yours. It don't matter if your life is "better" compared to mine. If it affects you and you feel strongly about it, then you're allowed to feel sad. Feeling sad is not some forbidden fucking taboo."  
Tears prickled his eyes. Feeling bitter but also incredibly trivial after seeing cigarette and chemical burns on the back of a friend, Stan suddenly blurted, as though he'd been meaning to say it all along, "My dad decided to learn the saxophone."  
"Aw yeah?" Kenny flicked his spent butt to the ground, toeing it out with his ratty sneaker.  
"He has to practice before and after work, so I wake up every morning to his awful playing and then my mom and him yelling at each other over it. It'll last like all morning and I usually wind up going to school a nervous wreck."  
"Lame." As Stan expected, Kenny didn't seem incredibly moved by this confession. He didn't exactly seem dismissive of it, either, but it was not the response he'd been hoping for.  
Not that Stan even knew what kind of response he wanted; he didn't even know if he wanted a response at all. His problems were stupid and trivial and immature, and he had no right to be so unhappy when he at least knew his parents loved him; not when someone like Kenny probably questioned that every day.  
Sure his dad was an ass, but he did still love him. Sure his mom could be harsh, but he'd do anything for her.  
He just wished...

"Just forget it," he spat, closing his eyes and hiding them behind his open palm. "It's not important."  
"Your problems are important, Stan. They matter. You matter."  
"Nothing fucking matters dude, that's the point. That's the whole fucking point of all of this, don't you get it?" Before Kenny could concede or deny this point, Stan marched right along. "Why do you think we're even sitting here right now? Because we matter so goddamn little that no one even realized that we were missing from school. We matter so goddamn little that no one even stopped us from walking down the street, plain as day, two stupid ass kids playing hooky. We matter so goddamn little that Wendy hasn't even texted me to ask why I haven't come to meet her after her student council bullshit. Why the fuck do I even exist when I don't change a goddamn thing in this world? Why the fuck does anyone even fucking try when we're all just going to be fucking miserable anyway? Why don't people just-"  
His voice had been slowly rising in volume and octave as the words spilled fast and furiously from his mouth, but when at his most emotional, when it came time to say the one word, to say the one thing he knew you were never supposed to say, he faltered, and his voice withdrew back into him again. Finally, to complete the thought, he altered his word choice slightly, but it was still with aching bitterness and hopelessness he said, "-stop?"  
Kenny was not to be fooled.  
With no preamble, Kenny spoke the word that Stan would not. "Die?" And Stan choked up. The tears saturating his eyes finally welled up, and the first tear dripped down his cheek.  
"Yeah."

After wiping his eyes vigorously and sniffling, with Kenny patiently waiting beside him, Stan somehow found it in him to continue. "And it's just like...everything seems so otherworldly sometimes, you know? Like life is a sitcom but you're tired of watching it and you just want to change the channel and find something else. You just get so fucking sick of seeing the same stupid shit every day and nothing ever gets better. It's always the same stupid shit rehashed but still fucking stupid and you don't know how you can keep living with it anymore." Stan's heart was pounding and sinking into his chest with a keen sense of dread as he spoke. He still had no idea what saying any of this would amount to, or even what kind of response he was hoping to receive; he wasn't even entirely sure where the words were coming from.

He wasn't looking for pity, that much he knew. But he didn't want to be comforted and babied either. He didn't want to be told it was going to be alright because it didn't feel like it was going to be alright, and someone telling him that it would be one day wasn't fucking going to help anything.

Mercifully, Kenny did not address these frightening words. Not at first. He allowed Stan to at least finish unloading this heavy burden of his.  
"I tried once," he whispered. Kenny may as well have been a statue next to him. "Just...I was so sick of it dude. They taught us how to tie a noose in Boy Scouts; it's basically just a slip knot, you know. I didn't do it right though. It wasn't enough to break my neck and the rope gave before...you know."  
"Mmhmm," Kenny said noncommittally.  
"That was a few months ago, about spring break. My parents were working, everyone else was busy. I was just home alone, with myself."  
"Kyle found out, didn't he?" Stan looked like Kenny had struck him upside the face. Mentioning Kyle like that, after all this; the nerve.  
"No." It didn't seem that there would be any further response after that, but then, with a savage growl, he flung his beer can to the ground. There wasn't much liquid remaining in it, but the little there was dribbled all over Stan's sneakers before it rolled between his feet, and he crushed it. Then, when Kenny had no comment to offer regarding this display, Stan added, "I told him."

Kenny gently placed the Coors on the ground beside his feet, furthest from Stan, and he gingerly plucked the last cigarette from the pack in between them. Nothing in his demeanor suggested alarm, panic, concern, interest, or otherwise. He lit his cigarette, flicking his shitty lighter almost a dozen times before getting it to work.

Unprompted, Stan continued talking to the unassuming Kenny. It was an odd in between; wanting to tell someone, not wanting to burden or worry anyone, wanting to keep it a secret, and wanting to know if someone else understood.  
Kyle had not understood.  
"He suspected it, I think. But he pretended not to. You know how he can be so goddamn blind when he wants to be." Kenny released a noncommittal grunt. "I finally told him what I was doing the week after I failed-" again Stan rather purposely stopped the word from coming out, but before he had time to concoct a reasonable euphemism, Kenny said it straight.  
"Killing yourself," he said bluntly. Beside him, Stan exhaled sharply, but he nodded. It was the only way to put it. "Be honest with yourself," Kenny added thoughtfully afterward. "That's some of the best advice I've ever received. At least be honest with yourself, especially when the honesty hurts you."  
"Sure, whatever," Stan muttered. He dug his toes into the dirt, his gaze firmly set on the muddy pond before them.

"Well, by then I'd been doing it for months. Cutting, I mean," he added when he heard Kenny take a breath to speak. "Kyle was the first person I told, but I didn't know how to put it, you know? It just sort of came out. He was my best friend; I thought maybe he'd understand, you know? But instead, he was so freaked out, especially when I told him about the attempt." His toes dug deeper, dirt streaking his sneakers brown as they clawed desperately at the ground. "The fucking asshole didn't even try to-" He paused. Try to what? What exactly had he expected Kyle to do?  
"Kyle doesn't really understand people," Kenny said gently when Stan did not finish his sentiment. "He's a little self absorbed sometimes."  
"Yeah? I'd never noticed," Stan replied wryly. Kenny released a small, dry "Heh" in response.

"I thought he might understand, but I was wrong and he was scared of me and he avoided me. When we made up I lied and said I'd stopped doing it, but one day one of my, ah...one of my cuts started bleeding through my jacket; this fucking heat dude, I can't keep a bandage on to save my life. Well, um...this one was deeper than usual, and it started bleeding through and he saw it, and I tried to brush it off and get it wrapped up again in the bathroom and he saw my arm and, um. I was having a really rough time that week and...anyway, he saw and he flipped again and before I knew it he was fucking blaming me for everything."  
"He wasn't _blaming_ you Stan," Kenny said, sounding immeasurably frustrated. "You know how he-" He snorted derisively at himself, helplessly smoothing back his impossible hair with his free hand. "_Fuck," _he grunted. "I just feel like I'm saying the same shit to you about Kyle as I did to Kyle about you!"  
"Well it's nice to know you've already had a nice chat with Kyle about me behind my back," Stan snapped.  
"We weren't talking about you behind your back, dude. Believe it or not, Kyle was having a rough time and he needed someone to talk to."  
"Oh, well, gee, I'm so sorry Kyle is having a rough time. I only wish I knew how he was feeling so I could talk to him."  
"I'm not trying to excuse his behavior; I'm just trying to make you realize that Kyle's life hasn't been a basket of peaches recently either. Maybe he's dealing with it a different way than you but-"  
"But when his best friend needs his help, his life is way more important."  
"You're both acting like fucking toddlers, you know."  
"Am I? Or am I just finally calling Kyle's shit? You know how our relationship always worked, Kenny? One-sided as fuck. I'm the one making sure Kyle's ok. Kyle needs a new kidney. Kyle needs hemorrhoid cream. Kyle moves to San Francisco and I need to rescue him. Kyle loses all his friends on fucking Facebook and needs me to pick his fucking FLOWERS for him or some shit. It's always about fucking Kyle. And you want me to count number of times Kyle has gone out of his way to help me? Fuckin' zilch. The number of times he's willing to inconvenience himself to come to my aid? Fuckin' nada! And when I tell him I tried to fucking kill myself and I don't know what to do? Do you think Kyle wanted to help me? Do you think Kyle so much as shed a tear? Do you think he could even _look at me_? At the goddamn cuts on my arms?"  
Stan began to rip off his jacket, his arms awkwardly struggling out of sleeves that were a little snug on him until he shed it completely, and then he threw it as hard as he could towards the pond. It hardly hit the shore, one sleeve dangling awkwardly in the dirty pond water and the rest in a dirty, wrinkled heap in the mud.

"Look at them," Stan seethed.  
"I saw already, Stan."  
_"Look at them!"  
_Kenny looked. It wasn't as bad as he'd thought; only one or two were fresh, those he had already seen on his left arm and a long, scabbing wound on his right arm that already seemed to be healing. The thin hair on his arms hid most of them from sight, but there was no denying the sorrow carved into his flesh. The long, white scars were like engravings on a tomb.  
Stan had not been lying; he had been hiding the truth for a long, long time.  
How had no one noticed? How was it possible that no one until now had wondered why Stan Marsh would not take off his jacket?

"Nobody cared," Stan whispered, lip quivering, as though answering an unspoken question. "My parents asked why I wanted a straight razor for my birthday last year. I just told them I thought they were cool; retro, you know? I hardly ever needed to shave but I told them I wanted to practice with it now just to acquire the skill. They bought it; the story and the razor. And the iodine in the medicine cabinet and the gauze pads and medical tape, they just didn't even ask. Neither did my sister. And when I went to the doctor's for bronchitis last year, I had to take off my jacket so he could listen to my chest, and I had just cut the night before and there was a big fucking gauze pad taped on my arm and he didn't even notice. No one did, teachers, my friends, and least of all Kyle. And when I told him, he ran away from me. He said I scared him. Said he didn't know how to handle it." He barked a dry, bitter laugh. "HE didn't know how to handle it. Like the selfish prick that he is. He was no different than everyone else. Everyone was always too goddamn absorbed with their own lives to ever worry about mine."

Stan remained limply hunched over the edge of the bench. His arms, resting on his legs, seemed barely enough to hold him up. It was as though a massive weight had descended onto his shoulders, and he was letting it sink him.  
"And Wendy?"  
Stan grunted unintelligibly.  
"Did you try to tell Wendy?"  
"Of course not." He still didn't lift himself back up; rather, he sunk lower, and he hid his face in his hands. "Could you imagine how she'd react? She still can't handle me drinking."  
"She's tried to talk to me about you, you know."  
"Yeah?"  
"She's talked to all of us. We just had no idea what to say. We had no idea what to do; she wanted us to have an intervention for you or something. If only Kyle had mentioned you were cutting, I think we would have done it sooner. But we were afraid to push you."  
"Push me?" Stan repeated, and then he said again, a little angrier. "_Push me_?"  
"Push you, like, to drink more or...or, well, to kill yourself."  
"So you guys already knew," Stan spat. "You knew I was toeing the edge and you were just too pussy to do anything about it."  
Kenny ran a hand through his hair and sighed deeply. He looked so tired; so utterly beaten down. "I don't know, dude," he admitted. "You used to cut," Stan said directly. "Why?"  
"I was pissed off and I didn't know what to do about it. Fuck; I still don't know what to do about it sometimes," Kenny grumbled. "And sometimes, I just wanted to hurt. But I decided that that wasn't the way to deal with everything."  
"You wanna know why I do it?" Kenny didn't reply, so Stan continued, "Because I feel like I'm drowning in myself or like I'm suffocating in my own body. Sometimes I just feel like I'm already dead. Sometimes I just get so fucking sad that I just go completely numb and I don't even know if I'm fucking alive anymore. And you know what? _I don't fucking know why. _If I knew why the fuck I was so sad all the time then maybe I could do something about it, but I don't, so I can't. I can't do anything but swim in my own fucking misery, and the worst part? Knowing that no matter what you do, you'll never be able to make yourself better."

They both shifted uncomfortably into a painfully loud silence, made worse by the incessant swarming mosquitoes that, even now, Kenny was constantly swatting away from his bare skin.  
Stan now had to suffer this indecency as well, but after a few half-hearted swats, he simply gave up and allowed himself to go limp. He watched one of the little bugs land on his forearm and eventually stab into his skin, and he did nothing to stop it.

But then, something a little further beyond caught his eye, and he frowned at it. "How far did I throw my jacket?" Stan asked.  
Kenny was slightly confounded by the question, but he answered. "Uh, not that far. Like, like sleeve landed in the water."  
"Look," Stan said, and he pointed. They both looked at the ancient brown jacket slowly edging into the water. While at first it had in fact been only one sleeve in the shallow water, nearly the whole thing had set adrift from the muddy shore. The pond, as still as it seemed, seemed to be gently coercing the jacket into it.  
"That's weird," Stan murmured. Beside him, Kenny silently nodded in agreement. "Maybe the wind blew it into the water." There had been no wind for what felt like hours.  
"It's gravity, dude," Kenny said. "Tidal movements and shit like that. Invisible to the naked eye."  
"In a pond?"  
"It's the same for all bodies of water, dude. It's just more noticeable at the ocean."  
"Fascinating," said Stan. He did not seem very fascinated; instead, he was rather preoccupied with pulling the last Coors from the plastic ring.  
"Isn't it, though?" Out of the corner of his eye, Kenny saw Stan struggling with the tab again, but he wasn't too eager to open it; his useless plucks at the metal tab were completely spiritless. "I mean, just think about it."  
"Think about what?" Stan asked.  
"Like, that's a winter jacket. It's old but it's still probably pretty, heavy, right?" Stan nodded to acknowledge this, slowly, not sure where he was going with this. "And you threw it because you weren't expecting to go anywhere. You figured as long as it didn't land in the pond outright, you'd be able to recover it just fine. But even though it was just one sleeve, and the pond looks completely still and motionless, this insignificant, imperceptible force was somehow enough to slowly begin dragging the rest of it into the pond. You didn't even realize it was happening; it might have escaped your notice entirely if you hadn't just happened to glance up at it."

Kenny paused to allow what he was saying to sink in, but while Stan didn't appear to have any trouble following this, it was obvious he didn't see the significance in it. "And what does this have to do with anything?" he asked.  
Kenny firmly placed a hand on Stan's shoulder, and Stan was suddenly reminded of earlier that morning, as he prepared for school, and his father had held his shoulder as he tried to avoid his eyes.  
This time, when the hand on his shoulder squeezed, Stan didn't try to hide his gaze.  
"It has to do with _everything, _dude. Maybe what you do is imperceptibly changing the world around you, but you're still affecting the world. You still _matter_. Everything you do matters. Even if you look around and it doesn't seem like anything has changed, your being there has changed everything in the world in ways you can't even begin to imagine. Absolutely no one on this earth deserves to die," Kenny finished fervently, and he shook Stan's shoulder, desperate for his words to somehow sink in. "And I'll be honest with you, Stan, it scares me shitless to think about living in a world without you. You affect our lives so much more than you realize, and maybe it's selfish, but I don't want you to die, and I'd do anything to convince you that you don't want to die, either."  
Stan had long ago found himself unable to keep eye-contact with Kenny. His tearful gaze pierced the ground between his feet, and his front teeth bit down hard on his quivering bottom lip.  
"You might never really be fully, completely happy again," Kenny said ruefully. "And I'm sorry to say that. A lot of people try to tell you that one day it'll just get better and you'll be happy again. And you might, and I really, really hope you do. But it might not be like that. You could find sadness lurking over your shoulder every day and you'll struggle looking it in the face when you look at yourself in a mirror. But for as many high tides and low tides you have, sometimes you've just gotta keep treading water and keep your head up. There will eventually be a day when your feet touch the bottom, and from then on, it might not be perfect, but it'll definitely be easier, and you'll be glad you made it. I promise."

Already choking up and trying not to cry for the third time that day, Stan managed a hysterical laugh combined with a sob. He said, incredulously, "Are you really telling me to 'just keep swimming?'"  
The sorrow on Kenny's face evaporated and a wide smile replaced it. He nodded his head to and fro, singing: "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming-"  
"Alright, I get it. I get it." Stan shoved Kenny, playfully, and he shoved back. Stan accidentally kicked over Kenny's beer can, which had been lying in wait all this time. As fast as Kenny reached down to recover it, it spilled a little puddle of beer into the dirt, and it sucked into the ground slowly.  
"Sorry," Stan said. He rubbed his eyes, still trying to keep the pending tears at bay.  
"It's cool, I wasn't really drinking it anyway." Kenny was observing the can in his hand, tilting it a little this way and that way, and then he suddenly wound up, and pitched the beer can as far as he could. It landed with a distant 'Plop!' into Stark's Pond. "I don't need that shit anyway," Kenny said. "I've got enough things in the world trying to kill me without worrying about liver disease and shit."  
"You don't seem to mind sucking up some nice lung cancer, though," Stan pointed out.  
"Fuck it; we've all got our vices." Kenny stretched, reaching towards the burning sun, and he cracked his neck loudly, twisting his head every which way. "Alright, how about this," he amended. "I have enough trouble controlling the stupid things I do and say _without_ impeding my judgment."  
"Well, when you put it that way, a plastered, out of control Kenny _would_ be pretty scary."  
"Right? See, you get it." Stan had been holding the final Coors for some time, and he found himself looking over it the same way Kenny had done. Then, making his decision, he pulled back his arm, the same as Kenny had done, and he threw it as far as he could towards the pond.  
While it had been a few years since pitching for their little league baseball team, the can soared over Stark's Pond, very nearly hitting the other side before it took finally disappeared into the water with a distant splash.  
"Nice one," Kenny said. Little League had evidently come to him as well, for then he asked Stan, "A home run, you think?"  
Stan nodded, satisfied. "Definitely a home run."

* * *

Kenny walked Stan home. The journey was silent with mutual understanding and no assumptions were made of either boy.  
There was a lot that could have still been said, but when Stan came to the edge of his driveway and paused, there was nothing he felt he needed to say.  
Not at the moment, anyway. Kenny had already made him promise that the next time he needed to talk to anyone, about anything, or the next time he even felt a fleeting desire to cut, he would call or text him.  
Stan didn't like the idea of bothering Kenny, and he assured him if he did exactly as he'd asked he would be calling very frequently, but Kenny didn't seem to mind.  
"What the fuck else am I doing with my time?" he said with a shrug. "Summer's just around the corner and all I do is sit at home and watch porn."  
"Well, if I call you and you're in the middle of something, at least have the decency to stop beating off when I'm talking to you," said Stan.  
"No guarantees," said Kenny.

The driveway seemed crowded with both cars side by side. Knowing that both of his parents were home and that he might have to pass by them before he managed to hole up in his room made his heart sink, but he said nothing about this to Kenny. He simply turned with a little wave and said, "See you," as nonchalant as could be.

Before he took more than a step, Kenny stopped him, one hand tightly gripping his shoulder. He seemed to roll the words around on his tongue for a moment before deciding which ones to use, and in the end, he stuck with one simple request: "Take care of yourself."  
Stan nodded without responding and continued on. Kenny's hand fell from his shoulder, and Stan could feel him watching him all the way to the door. Before he let himself in, he waved again, and Kenny waved back.  
He was still standing there when Stan stepped inside.

Stan glanced around and found the room empty, and he hastily made his way towards the stairs, hoping to avoid running into anyone. But his mother caught him from the threshold of the kitchen.  
"Hi sweetie," she called. Sharon leaned outside the doorway, wiping a large frying pan dry with a towel. "How was school?"  
"Um..." Stan, who already had one foot propped up on the first step, lied, "Great. It was great; easy days before summer, you know."  
His mother just stood there, observing carefully, slowly wiping the pan in circular motions. "Did anything interesting happen today?" she asked.  
"No, not really."  
"I see." They both waited for each other to say something more. Finally, Stan pointed upstairs. "I'm just, uh, gonna be in my room. Okay?"  
"Okay." Sharon seemed to become more interested in the pan she as wiping dry, although at this point Stan was certain it couldn't have had a single drop of water on it by this point. "Well, dinner will be ready in about two hours. I'll call you down," she said.  
"Thanks."

At first, they turned to go their separate ways. Sharon turned to return to the sink; Stan took one more step up the stairs. But then he stopped, and as he grabbed hold of the banister, he called down, "Hey Mom?"  
Sharon paused and craned her head back towards the stairs. "Yes dear?"  
"I forgot to say; is it okay if I go somewhere with Wendy tonight? I know it's a school night and I'll miss dinner, but um, it wouldn't be really late, and it's kind of important."  
Sharon smiled softly. "What time?" she said.  
"Around six."  
"Will you be home by nine?"  
"I'm not sure how long we'll be," he admitted. "I'll try."  
"Hmm, well," she said, contemplatively. "I'll ask your father. I think he's upstairs polishing that infernal instrument right now."  
They both exchanged tired, knowing smiles.  
"I think he's getting a _little_ better," Stan said hopefully.  
"Oh please," she scoffed. "It's as awful now as it always was. I'll give him credit for pure determination, but that's it."  
"Yup, that's Dad," Stan chuckled.  
"Well, I'll get back with you soon, sweetie. I'm sure he wouldn't mind letting you go out for a bit."  
"Thanks."

Stan waited a second too long before saying what he meant to say next; Sharon had turned again, and Stan could no longer see her. He leaned over the banister and said again, loudly, "Hey Mom?" Sharon returned to the threshold again, this time looking slightly nonplussed. She clearly thought it was odd that Stan was so eager to talk to her today. "Yes dear?" she said again.  
"I just wanted to say that I love you."  
Now Sharon seemed bewildered and caught off guard. "Oh..." She wasn't even pretending to dry the pan anymore; it and the towel hung limply in her hands. "Stan, I...that's sweet of you. I love you too, honey."  
"I know," he said. Then he hurriedly climbed the stairs before she could say another word.

As predicted, the door to his parent's bedroom was closed; odds were his dad was inside tinkering with the saxophone. Sure enough, when Stan listened at the door, he could hear his father talking animatedly to, presumably, Sparky, about the next piece he was going to try. He could hear the dog's excited panting.

Stan opted not to bother his father just yet; he could talk to him later. He knew his father's practice time was limited.  
Instead, he just smirked and left the door without saying a word, and he crossed the hall into his room.

Sharon had tidied up, having done at least one load of laundry out of the clothes on the ground and leaving them folded on a bed that had not been made before he'd left. While he appreciated the folded clothes, he didn't go to put them away just yet; he pushed them aside, falling onto his bed and whipping out his phone.  
He tapped out a quick text to Wendy: _I changed my mind, I want to go to that thing tonight. Where can I meet you?  
_ As he waited for her reply, he stared down at his phone, and then, with one finger he scrolled up from his contacts until he found Kyle's name.  
Warily, he stared at the name so long that his phone eventually slept, and he had to flick it back on again.  
He tapped Kyle's name and then tapped Message, and, before he lost his nerve, he typed out: _I'm sorry i've been scaring you. I know I haven't considerate of your feelings. Will you please just hear me out and let me explain?_ And he sent it out.

Stan placed the phone on his nightstand and dug his pillow out from underneath his comforter. He buried his face in it, simultaneously hoping that they would both reply back as quickly as possible and also not reply at all. He was scared to go to address his alcoholism in front of a support group when, even now, he still maintained he was not, strictly speaking, an alcoholic.  
And it scared him to see what Kyle might send back. Kyle held all the cards, including the wild ones, and he could do anything. He could ignore him, or could accept the apology, or he could send back a really, really nasty reply that would probably make Stan need to call Kenny a lot sooner than he'd been hoping.

Most of all, he was scared of himself. He didn't want to disappoint his mother or his father or Wendy or even Kenny, but he didn't think he was capable of not causing disappointment. He was scared of failing, and he was scared of repeating the past. The sadness would go out sometimes, as though withdrawing into low tide, but it always, inevitably, came rushing back; as deep as ever.  
He could try as hard as he wanted, but eventually he would give in. It had always been like that.  
And if he gave in, even once, he was scared that he would be unsalvageable. If a tidal wave pulled him out again, would anyone be there to reel him back in?

His phone buzzed suddenly on his nightstand, and he threw out an arm to grab it. As he'd expected, Wendy was the first to reply:  
_Thank God Stan. I'm so relieved. I'll work out a ride and I'll get back to you with the info, ok? I love you_ _  
_He poked back:_ ilu2_

The message had hardly sent before the phone buzzed with Kyle's reply, and the banner at the top of the screen read:  
_Kyle: I don't want you to-_

Stan hid his face in his pillow again, anxiously debating between deleting the message before reading it or throwing his phone across the room; anything would have been preferable to reading the rest of the sentence. He had a fleeting image of his straight razor, edge red with dark blood, and, annoyed, he realized that now he was obligated to tell Kenny, and this meant that, one way or another, he had to use his phone.

Before he could ignore Kyle's message and open a new conversation to talk to Kenny, curiosity got the better of him and without giving himself a chance to stress over it, he thumbed down to open the message.

_I don't want you to think I'm blowing you off, but my mother has got me on lock down tonight. Nice family dinner, dressed up...and no phone at the table. I promise i'll talk to you when I can, ok?_

Stan was so relieved he just crashed his face right into his pillow again and heaved a deep sigh. He couldn't even reply for a minute; he just smiled stupidly into his pillow, and he realized that, somehow, he was happy; he was so happy he couldn't even form words.  
Their friendship had been adrift in tumultuous waters for months, but maybe it wasn't too far gone yet, and maybe Stan wasn't either.

He took so long to answer that his phone buzzed again, this time with a single word: _Stan?_

If Kyle was capable of being worried about not receiving a reply soon enough, then no; it definitely wasn't too far gone.

_Ok, let's just say we'll talk tomorrow, ok? And don't worry, i'm fine._ Then, to Kenny:  
_I thought about it just for a second, but it's fine. Kyle and I are gonna talk._

Stan curled up on his bed, kicking some of his nicely folded clothes off onto the floor in the process, and for a moment he felt bad about it. His mother had taken the time to fold them nicely so they wouldn't be wrinkled, and now they would be for sure.  
He didn't dwell on it for too long, though; what was done was done, and he would just have to remember next time not to take it for granted.  
He would just have to remember not to take _anything_ for granted.

It would take some effort swimming against the current; achieving some kind of mutual understanding with Kyle, getting Wendy to trust him again, and somehow finding a resolution he could deal with for his parents' arguing would take time. But it wouldn't be impossible; not like trying to fight gravity.  
And if the waves of depression tried to wash him away again, he would struggle to keep his head above water as long as he could. Even if he thought it wouldn't matter in the end, he hoped that like the subtle crawling tides, invisible to the naked eye, he might finally find peace and emerge onto the shore.


End file.
